Ronald Segal

North, south, east and west

issue 29 October 2005

Among my earliest recollections is that of wandering into my mother’s bathroom and watching her, toenails incarnadine with polish like pillars above the foam, as she addressed herself sternly along the lines of: ‘I should have covered the jack. Then they could never have made the contract.’

Except for my brother Maurice, who played the piano, we all played bridge in the family, and we continued this in my own home, though my son came to be so much better than all of us that I refused to play with him. Impeccable kindness in criticism is especially hard to take.

I had read and enjoyed Sandy Balfour’s previous book, Pretty Girl in Crimson Rose (8), with the subtitle, ‘A Memoir of Love, Exile and Crosswords’. This book is sub-titled, ‘A Memoir of Fathers, Sons and Contract Bridge’.

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